


conditional entropy

by nysscientia



Series: probabilities [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Banter, Cooking, Food as a Metaphor for Love, M/M, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Pre-Slash, Psychological Trauma, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 15:24:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5545076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nysscientia/pseuds/nysscientia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing is, it’s sort of weirder now, actually, when Barnes shows up out of the blue.  He used to drop from above like a jungle cat, all glinting weapons and silent movement and hollow eyes.  Usually it was the middle of the night, even odds on whether or not he’d be bleeding, and he’d make Tony do some sort of technical thing and say four to six abortive words and vanish into the shadows.</p><p>Then Steve and Wilson found him, and they stayed at the tower for a few months, and Tony changed all of their ringtones to the Three’s Company theme and Wilson yelled at him.</p><p>So now Barnes still comes over at all hours, but it’s only occasionally for maintenance or upgrades, and sometimes he cooks.  Once in awhile he just leaves things in Tony’s suite, expensive sake you can only get in Japan or novelty candy from Germany.  A knife from Romania, one time.  It’s kind of like having a cat, actually, except the gifts are better and there’s no shedding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	conditional entropy

**Author's Note:**

> This story deals with Tony and Bucky's responses to trauma, and includes some exploration of the fact that Bucky's arm was made by HYDRA. If I've unintentionally written something ableist, please let me know and I'll take this down until (if) I can fix it.
> 
> Also, I have no idea how this got so domestic, or why every time I try to write smut I write angst instead. I'm anticipating one more installment in this series (and I expect it to move us from pre-slash into official slash).

When his hands start shaking, Tony drops the pliers and heads for the kitchen. Not like he’s never worked for almost twenty hours without eating before, but he’s trying to be better. Plus Pepper mentioned it in front of Steve a few weeks ago, and Tony has no desire to relive that particular lecture.

There’s a soft, rhythmic _thnk_ sound wafting down the stairwell. Tony pauses. He half-considers asking FRIDAY to activate one of his security protocols, just to see what would happen— but there’s no way that doesn’t end in major property damage, and that’s kind of the reverse of Tony’s mission these days.

Instead, he just runs through his mental flowchart of people who could’ve gotten through the tower’s standard protections, and realizes it’s gotten way too big.

“The media’s right,” Tony says as he enters the kitchen. “You people are a menace.”

“Assassins, or Russians?” Barnes asks. He doesn’t look up from his— dicing, apparently, what the hell. That was not even on Tony’s list of possible sources for the sound.

“Superheroes.” He leans against the doorframe, watches Barnes peel another onion. “And you’re not Russian.”

“Конечно.”

‘Knife’ was on the list. Just not in a ‘dicing’ capacity. Tony’s really not familiar with culinary sounds, apparently.

“Why are you cooking?”

“Why do you have so many onions and no chile peppers?”

Tony doesn’t even bother trying to figure out why that would be. He’s been having his groceries delivered since before grocery delivery was a thing, he’s not about to start inventorying his fridge just because some geezer doesn’t like his produce selection.

“I’ve ordered out for the last—” Tony reviews in his head— “twelve meals.”

Barnes’ knife pauses above the cutting board. “You haven’t had real food in four days?”

“That’s assuming three meals a day, which— no, hey, takeout is real food, I was getting good quality takeout, what are you implying about my taste?”

Barnes just finishes dicing his onion. Dicing Tony’s onion. Food usurper.

It’s not the first time Tony’s found Barnes hovering around the tower unannounced. Not the first time he’s found Barnes cooking, even. But it’s the first time since Tony’s official split from the Avengers, and— well, honestly, he’d figured the weird appearances were some kind of team thing. A show of loyalty, or part of the healing process, or whatever. Barnes pops up every now and then, sure; has ever since he started getting memories back— although that correlation is beyond even Tony’s fancy Extremis brain, because it’s not like Barnes knew him way back when, and he’s not even going to touch the notion that it might be connected to memories of _Howard_ — but, well. Tony thought, now that he and Steve aren’t colleagues anymore, the joint custody was over. And yet: onion.

Tony presses the heel of his hand into his temple; it eases a little bit of the pressure. Feeling a little muzzy, he drifts from the entryway toward the fridge and grabs a beer. He closes the door, hesitates, reopens it, takes out a second bottle and slides it across the counter to Barnes. Who, of course, does something complicated with his prosthetic hand and takes his first sip before Tony’s even grabbed the bottle opener.

Tony rolls his eyes elaborately and pops the cap from his with a quiet _snck_.

It’s something heavy and malty. Pepper’s taste in beer tends to run a little indulgent compared to Tony’s. Ironically.

Evidently it’s a lot for Barnes, too, who makes a face. Tony takes a long pull from his own bottle out of loyalty; he’s seen Barnes drink beers with the word ‘lite’ on the label, he’s not allowed to criticize Pepper’s love for the microbrewed. His opinion is null and void.

“I was going to make chana masala, but it won’t taste right without peppers,” Barnes says, eventually.

“Why are you here?” Tony blurts in response.

“Why are you?” Barnes asks, and it means at least three things. No, wait, Tony also told Maria he’d go to some meeting or something; it means at least four things. Moments like this always remind him that Natasha’s training is the legacy of Barnes’.

The thought is sobering enough that he manages to stifle his reflexive smart remark. Barnes seems willing to accept silence as an answer. Dropping to a crouch, he rummages in the cabinets, draws out a wok or a saucepan or something. Pepper knows a lot of the pan words. Tony just knows the foods.

The thing is, it’s sort of weirder now, actually, when Barnes shows up out of the blue. He used to drop from above like a jungle cat, all glinting weapons and silent movement and hollow eyes. Usually it was the middle of the night, even odds on whether or not he’d be bleeding, and he’d make Tony do some sort of technical thing and say four to six abortive words and vanish into the shadows.

Then Steve and Wilson found him, and they stayed at the tower for a few months, and Tony changed all of their ringtones to the Three’s Company theme and Wilson yelled at him.

After that, Barnes started making an effort to say things like “hello” and “thanks.” Tony nipped that right in the bud, although he has a sneaking suspicion Barnes still uses human manners with Pepper and Maria and the other Avengers. Maybe with everyone but Tony; he doesn’t particularly care.

So now Barnes still comes over at all hours, but it’s only occasionally for maintenance or upgrades, and sometimes he cooks. Once in awhile he just leaves things in Tony’s suite, expensive sake you can only get in Japan or novelty candy from Germany. A knife from Romania, one time. It’s kind of like having a cat, actually, except the gifts are better and there’s no shedding.

Case in point: stew. Soup. Chili? Curry? Barnes makes something with vegetables and a lot of spices, and Tony eats a home-cooked meal with another intelligent carbon-based being. They don’t talk at all, but he still feels more like a human person afterward.

They also pack the leftovers into Tupperware, which is— unsettling, but not bad, really.

“You’re welcome to the TV; I think Netflix added the next season of— the one with the— nevermind, I’m not gonna pretend I was watching. They added a bunch of new stuff and it might include the show you like,” Tony says, waving his hands towards the lounge. “I’m going to get my eighty winks.”

“Eighty?” Barnes asks.

“At least,” Tony replies, mostly to himself, already halfway down the hall. “At least eighty. Maybe a solid hundo.”

He ignores the approving crook at the corner of Barnes’ mouth.

-

When Tony wakes the next morning, it’s not actually morning at all; it’s nearly three PM. Which makes it less weird that Barnes is still in the lounge, maybe. It probably also makes it more weird that Barnes prepared a meal for him ten hours ago, but Tony elects not to dwell on the past.

They nod companionably at one another when Tony passes him on the way to the gym suite, as stoic hero types do. They don’t really acknowledge one another when Tony’s going back to the master bedroom to change, but they don’t particularly not acknowledge one another either, which seems equally stoic/heroic.

Tony doesn’t pass through the lounge on his way from the master bedroom to the lab, so there’s no need for stoicism or heroics. And then he pulls up the files from yesterday, or that morning or whatever, and he gets buried in the work for awhile.

Everything takes more nitpicking, now that he’s designing for an Avengers team he’s not a part of. He had worried he’d get bored, doing semi-retirement; Tony gets bored fast, and bored Tony is historically not a good Tony. But between engineering for a whole new set of superpowers, and trying to design products with foolproof user interfaces instead of assuming he’ll be around to explain things— and, you know, not letting homicidal super-AIs infiltrate any of his work— he’s got his hands plenty full.

He likes to imagine that’s why he keeps not noticing until Barnes is right behind him. Just really involved in his work.

Barnes is standing nearly a polite distance away, looking at Tony’s work over his shoulder. He’s got a bowl in his hands and a spoon in his mouth.

“Your yogurt’s really thick,” he observes. He nods towards another bowl, on a worktable just behind Tony. Fresh fruit and granola and everything.

Tony grabs it and takes a bite. The yogurt is pretty thick. “Pepper likes Greek.”

Barnes scoots some spare tools and circuitry aside, sits on the edge of the worktable. He seems content with the quiet, and the granola is good, so Tony stuffs his face between modifying schematics and running calculations, all the busywork of playing Q to a team of cape-wearing Bonds.

When both of them have finished eating, Barnes collects the empty bowls and drops them into the sink, all domestic. Then he announces that some of his wiring’s getting “hinky.”

He flexes the fingers on his metal arm one by one, gives the wrist a full rotation. Tony crosses to look. Work as delicate as Barnes’ prosthetic needs occasional maintenance to keep flowing right, sure; but it hasn’t been particularly long since his last tune-up, and usually the stuff Tony fixes stays fixed. Or, well, the hardware Tony fixes stays fixed, to be more accurate. Anyway. He cracks his knuckles and grabs for his tools.

There’s nothing wrong with the arm, per se; it was designed to withstand extreme circumstances for great stretches of time. When the wiring’s all laid out, there’s refinements to be made, yeah, but— Barnes is asking for maintenance more and more often, with thinner and thinner excuses.

Tony’s not sure what that’s about. He’s got a few guesses, though.

Guesses that he doesn’t voice. He works in silence for awhile, recording with Extremis so he’ll have transcripts of any and all alterations. A more thorough examination of the wrist joints gives Tony some ideas for beefing up the Avengers’ body armor– Natasha and Wilson both spend so much time catapulting through the air, Tony’s always looking for ways to increase durability without adding bulk or weight— and he pulls up a few new files, makes notes. It’s easy to keep track of multiple trains of thought when he doesn’t have a gun barrel shoved into his stomach.

They’ve come such a long way.

“So I’m a superhero,” Barnes says eventually, like they’re already in the middle of a conversation.

Tony makes a face, twists out another small screw. “No, you’re _regular_.”

“But you’re not.”

“I think you’ll find a lot of people will agree that I’m fairly irregular, yes,” Tony mutters around the screwdriver between his teeth. He’s not sure how much comes across clearly, but Barnes is a superspy, he’ll figure it out.

“Not a superhero,” Barnes corrects, and Tony tries not to tense up.

“Is that what this is about?”

In reply, Barnes glances down at the wires uncurling from the open panel on his arm, then quirks an eyebrow at Tony.

“Sure, okay, strictly business,” Tony says. “Just here for maintenance on your already meticulously maintained biotech, whatever.”

-

Two hours and a few tweaks later, Tony’s got the arm cleaned up and sealed, and Barnes leaves for— wherever he goes when he’s not wandering around Tony’s property. Tony makes a few half-hearted attempts at integrating new ideas for joints into the Falcon’s EXO, then stops kidding himself and pulls up all his notes on Barnes’ arm.

And all of SHIELD’s notes on Barnes’ arm. And everything that could be recovered of HYDRA’s notes on Barnes’ arm, and some crackpot theories from the dark web about Barnes’ arm. He lets FRIDAY throw some memes about robot assassins up, too, what the hell. Thorough though his records are, all Tony’s got in his private files is specs for the hardware, and he needs a whole lot more than that.

He scraps sixteen medically impossible ideas and spills an entire cup of coffee down his shirt, but by the end of the day Tony’s got a plan. Or a rough sketch of an outline of a plan. Whatever.

Tony saves the schematics and sits back in his desk chair. The lab is dim, but it’s never truly silent, the hum of machinery a constant presence. He just breathes for a minute, in and out. Then he activates Extremis and calls up the latest Mark’s left gauntlet.

The metal slips into place, stabilizes around his hand, glinting in the low light. Tony flexes his fingers one by one, gives the wrist a full rotation. The servos glide noiselessly, easily, hypnotic and soothing.

-

Over the next few weeks, Pepper visits the most, with Rhodey and— weirdly— Barnes taking second and third place. Tony also sees Hill twice, once to make up for the meeting he missed, and presumably again as punishment for not just showing up the first time. Natasha never comes to the tower, but she video calls several times, and on one occasion she talks to Tony about something other than politics or violence for a whole six minutes. Steve doesn’t often have time to talk, but he texts Tony pretty consistently, everything from requests for training equipment to pictures of the sunrise that he evidently takes during actual sunrise like the secret hippie he is.

At first Tony assumes it’s just because he has, like, friends now. Eventually, though, it occurs to him that all of these people have a vested interest in keeping him emotionally stable, and they might be under the impression that he’s not very good at maintaining such a state on his own.

But this frenzy of concern is at least forty percent unfair assumptions, because Tony is exercising and sleeping and eating and everything. Not always at perfect intervals, but his diet is less than a third smoothie, even though smoothies are clearly the most efficient of foods, so what more do they want?

When Tony whines about this to Pepper, she is characteristically neither outraged nor sympathetic.

“I don’t care if you drink smoothies, Tony,” she claims.

“Does everyone else know that?”

Dropping into one of Tony’s chairs, Pepper toes off her Louboutins and doesn’t answer the question at all.

“Do you think people are talking to you on my instruction?” she asks instead. She’s obviously not taking this conversation seriously, because one of Pepper’s best and most frustrating skills is knowing when not to take Tony seriously. She’s not even looking at him, booting up her private corner of FRIDAY and linking up her business tablet.

The tower is still the most secure place to upload and store data, no matter what CNN’s whining about.

Tony pulls a banana out of the lab’s minifridge in some kind of immature knee-jerk bid to prove his point, gets distracted wondering how a banana got into the fridge, then remembers himself enough to argue.

“Why does anyone do anything, Potts?” he asks. “Statistically, because you said so.”

“That’s one of the most ridiculous things you’ve ever said,” she replies pleasantly. “Now hush, I’m running a spy agency.”

Pepper manages top-secret, fanatically encrypted data. Tony eats his banana.

Apparently satisfied with whatever running the intelligence branch of SI entails, Pepper dismisses the network of light that makes up FRIDAY's UI and slips her tablet back into her clutch. Then she turns the chair around to face him, and Tony is hit for a second with what it must be like for people to meet Virginia Potts, CEO of Stark Industries.

“You’re in my chair, you know,” he says.

Wisely, Pepper ignores this. “You want to know why people are always over to visit you lately?”

With most people, that’s where Tony would interject something sarcastic and probably condescending, but Pepper deserves better. He doesn’t answer.

“We just want you to be happy, Tony,” she says, and suddenly Tony is so angry he has to stop himself from reflexively summoning the armor with Extremis.

He tosses his banana peel at the trash instead. It barely flops over the edge of the bin, sliding in pathetically. Which feels pretty apt.

But he’s not actually angry at Pepper, so he takes a deep breath. Then he schedules a time to stop by and secure her office in SI headquarters, so she won’t have to come to the tower all the time, and offers her some coffee that he actually did brew within the last forty-five minutes.

She declines, and runs off to her next meeting, and Tony waits until he’s absolutely sure she’s gone to suit up and take a good, long joyride in the armor.

-

The next day, Barnes brings Tony sushi.

Tony accepts it warily. “You didn’t even make this yourself.”

“Takeout is real food,” Barnes quotes in reply, because Tony’s bewilderment is a funny joke for everyone.

Barnes doesn’t even stay to eat with Tony, just drops off the food and leaves. Like all he wanted was his chance to live like a delivery guy. It’s from Tony’s favorite sushi place, and they don’t actually deliver, but that’s not the point. The point is– something.

Tony’s really better with AIs than people. Or, well, until recently his track record with AIs was really good. Fuck Ultron. Anyway: he’s not good at people, but he knows people who are.

Thus enters another perk of Extremis: texting with his brain while eating with his hands.

_care to explain why your pet Terminator keeps feeding me?_

Steve’s reply is almost immediate: _Bucky?_

 _no, your other time-traveling bunker buddy_ , Tony sends. _yes, bucky._

 _Bucky is feeding you_ , Tony gets back, and then just a solitary question mark in a new text. Steve took to cell phones like a World War II-era duck to technologically advanced water, but sometimes he gets excited and sends messages before he has a chance to end punctuate. It’s charming as hell, actually, but no one’s counting.

After a short back and forth confirming that they are talking about the same person and the same incessant mother hennery, Steve sends Tony a series of texts that essentially amount to ‘I don’t know, ask him yourself.’

Tony sets down his chopsticks and grabs for a tablet, suddenly craving the satisfaction of haptic feedback.

 _tried asking_ , Tony says. _polite and everything. shockingly, the career spy was not forthcoming._

It’s a long time before he gets anything back from Steve, which probably just means Steve’s busy Avenging something. Tony pulls up his latest gauntlet schematics and does some glorified fiddling. At one point DUM-E attempts to clear away the takeout, which Tony is not done with and which DUM-E is nowhere near dexterous enough to actually pick up, and a certain amount cursing and waving of tools ensues.

Once DUM-E’s been safely ensconced in a far corner of the lab— and given a map of all the nearby shops that recycle old computer parts, and time to think about his actions— Tony remembers to check his SMS feed again.

Steve’s reply is waiting. _He’s probably just checking in, Tony._

Tony opens up the lab’s mic system and a call before he’s really thought about it. He waits for Steve to pick up, wonders what he’s going to say.

He gets voicemail instead of the good Captain, which is good news in that Steve doesn’t have to participate in whatever argument Tony’s about to have. It’s also bad news, in that Tony is totally capable of having shouting matches all by himself, and somehow that usually winds up even worse.

As soon as Steve’s incessantly polite-but-brisk message ends and Tony hears the beep, he finds himself vomiting up something about how leaving the Avengers was a responsible decision, and where does anyone get off acting like it’s the first sign of an impending breakdown when Tony’s doing the smart thing for once in his goddamned life, and who the _hell_ —

Which is when he hangs up. So that’s a thing Tony yelled. At Steve.

Tony sighs and goes back to SMS. He could hack the cell network and delete the message, but Steve would probably consider that unethical or something. Texting is safer.

 _ignore the idiot in your voicemail, I don’t know how he got your number_ , he sends. And, after a moment of deliberately not overthinking: _maybe I’m not totally without something to work through._

Then, accompanied by the Extremis-equivalent of slamming shut his SMS feed, he turns back to his half-forgotten sushi. The takeout containers are all branded with an ultra-trendy minimalist logo, and Tony remembers, abruptly, that it’s Pepper’s favorite sushi place, too. Pepper is always right.

-

Barnes doesn’t show his face for two weeks after that, which makes Tony suspect Steve mentioned the voicemail. Steve and his ungodly transparency. Realistically, though, two weeks is a fairly typical gap, so Tony doesn’t think about it much.

Okay, he thinks about it.

But he’s working with some very Winter Soldier themes; he’d have to be doing some nasty compartmentalization to not think about it, and that way lies explosions and tears and ill-advised racecar purchases. So he’s just being responsible!

Tony knows it’s bad when he can’t even believe his own bullshit.

Between the Avengers doing a brief stint saving the world overseas, and Pepper and Hill keeping up appearances at a tech summit, Tony spends those two weeks nearly uninterrupted (and, frankly, not very well fed). So when Barnes pops up again, Tony’s pretty much finished.

“I heard Pepper upped your caffeine allowance for good behavior,” Barnes says, handing Tony a coffee. It’s in a vaguely familiar mug, not a to-go cup, so apparently absence does not make the heart less likely to steal from a man’s private kitchen.

“I’m hoping to earn espresso rations soon,” Tony replies, rather than challenge the idea that Pepper monitors his diet. She’s got monumentally more important shit to do than keep track of what goes in Tony’s body, but it’s a comforting conversational grease. And it’s not like it was never true; so.

“What’re you working on?” Barnes asks, as though small talk is a thing they normally do, which pretty much confirms that he knows exactly what Tony’s been doing. If anything, extended exposure to the Winter Soldier has made Tony more skeptical of coincidence.

Instead of answering, Tony just— hands him an arm. There are many ways he could attempt more grace or tact about it. He doesn’t.

Barnes’ face freezes for a second, then does something complicated, then goes completely blank. Which, honestly, is exactly what Tony was expecting.

“There’s nothing wrong with your current model,” he starts. “Whoever built that thing knew what they were doing. You don’t strictly need an upgrade. But I’m not known for my strict interpretation of ‘need;’ and no matter what they knew I know more, frankly, so you might as well have— this.”

Barnes looks at the arm. He doesn’t say anything.

“It’s compatible with your current neuroconnectors, but I have upgrades for that system, too, if you want a total overhaul.”

More not saying anything. Barnes turns the arm in his hands, looks at the shoulder joint. Tony takes a sip of his coffee to avoid filling the silence with a joke about arms dealing.

He finds himself pulling up the schematics for the new neural implants instead. Between Extremis and SI’s latest work on prosthetic limbs, they’re almost perfect, even by Tony’s standards. More responsive, less invasive, and exponentially more secure than what HYDRA shoved into Barnes’ nervous system. In his naive moments, Tony has even allowed himself to hope the update would allow the man to walk like his arm is part of his body again, or at least eliminate words like ‘hinky’ from his vocabulary.

Realizing he’s been rambling about the designs, Tony forces himself quiet and makes a valiant attempt at patience. Barnes traces the metal and flesh seam where his current arm joins with his torso. It’s surprisingly loud when he finally asks, “When?”

“I’ve already talked to the guy who— I know a guy,” Tony answers, not sure whether Barnes would know the whole shrapnel/arc reactor story, “Worked with him before. Good with healing factors. He can be prepped for surgery in three days.”

“Give me a time and location,” Barnes replies. Tony sets up the appointment, passes along the details, and then Barnes is gone.

-

The problem with boundaries is that Tony’s pretty sure they mean you can’t show up uninvited to witness major brain surgery, even if it is incorporating neurotech you designed yourself. The date and time of Barnes’ procedure are technically not in Tony’s schedule, so in theory he spends that time working on unrelated projects.

In reality, he manages about twelve minutes making predictions based on old SHIELD files before he abandons the projections altogether. Then he clicks around some very weird corners of the internet, works out for twice as long as usual, tries to make a sandwich, somehow ruins aforementioned sandwich but eats it anyway, and slices open two of his knuckles with a wrench in a tragic engineering accident.

Which is why Tony hates self-help books.

Eighteen hours after the procedure should’ve ended, he caves and hacks the surgeon’s databases. The notes are heavily encrypted, dryly medical, and written in a nonsensical code, but it takes Tony less than an hour to conclude that Barnes’ surgery was as uneventful as total overhaul of a superhuman’s neural implants can be. That’s if the files can be believed, of course, but he can’t think of any rational reasons for the good doctor to lie on his private servers.

Plenty of irrational reasons, sure. But that’s because possible outcomes are Tony’s field of study. And his own personal expertise in worst case scenarios can’t actually impact probability.

Tony drops his head onto the workbench and allows himself a groan. Then he sits up, wipes grease off his forehead, and goes upstairs to attempt egg salad sandwich 2.0.

-

Twenty-nine hours after his surgery, Barnes materializes in the lounge. Tony still doesn’t witness Barnes’ actual B&E, but he does see him enter the room, which is possibly an all-time first.

The arm looks good. It’s still clearly a prosthetic, metal and curved in ways that aren’t entirely organic; but it’s a good fit. Barnes is wearing it, not enduring it, which is really all Tony had hoped for.

“Ah, the prodigal T-800 returns,” Tony announces, saving his active files and switching off the tabletop interface. He kicks his feet off the coffee table, almost stands, then feels stupid for almost standing and covers by pulling up the holographic displays again. “You don’t call, you don’t write.”

“It’s been one day,” Barnes says. He’s blank and inexorable as ever crossing the room, but his shoulders don’t seem quite as tense. He reaches through the hologram to switch the table unit off again, which, okay, is weirdly hot.

“One point two days,” Tony corrects, because he’s pathetic. “Seriously, am I getting a UI report or what?”

“You’re an idiot.”

“I meant the UI of the arm, but okay,” Tony replies, mouth moving before his brain’s gotten hold of the words.

Barnes is close, but it feels like he’s even closer, leaning over the table, crowding Tony back against the sofa. Tony reminds himself that Barnes only has an inch and some change on him. He feels huge.

“Forget the arm,” Barnes replies, brutal. Tony closes his mouth so hard his teeth ache. “Forget the gadgets, the workshop. The AIs. That’s not what this is about.”

Suddenly it’s almost a year ago; they’re standing in different places and no one’s got a knife, but the air is cold and tense and Tony’s pulse is pounding in his throat. “Enlighten me.”

“What are you doing on the bench, Stark?”

“You’d probably have a better shot at answering that question if you remembered about the gadgets and the workshop _and the AIs_ ,” Tony says, his voice coming from somewhere thick and tangled in his chest. He’s standing, he realizes; he and Barnes are hovering over the damn coffee table, personal space enforced by furniture, dropping slowly into combat stances.

“You fucked up,” Barnes says, and Tony starts to interject something like a snarl; Barnes talks over him. “And step one was removing yourself from play. What’s step two?”

Tony has some ludicrous, revolting urge to— to do something, to drink or strike or leap from somewhere very high. Free fall and the whir of servos.

His fists clench. It’s unconscious but Barnes is still one step ahead; he plants his palm against Tony’s chest, not a blow, just a barrier. It’s the new hand. It’s directly over the spot where Tony doesn’t have a reactor or a surgical scar.

Barnes’ hand tenses, metal fingers against Tony’s shirt, ghosts of wrinkles rising and falling from the fabric. He lets his arm drop. “You’re walking around like you’re the only one with a past.”

Understanding guts Tony, then. He wants— he wants to trash his lab. Move somewhere with fewer reflective surfaces. Seek out and destroy any news publication that’s ever used the word “superhero” seriously, apologize personally to every past or future member of the Avengers, strangle a HYDRA agent with his bare hands.

For every mistake Iron Man ever made, at least Tony Stark was behind the wheel.

“Barnes—” Tony starts, but it sounds backwards, and Barnes is already gone.


End file.
